Government Preference And Institutional Change

Contemporary social change in China has become a rich "treasure" among studies on institutional change. However, researches on the Internment and Repatriation System which has been implemented in China for decades are still very inadequate. After the abolition of The Regulation For Internment And Repatriation in June 14th,2003 by the State Council,47 days later, The Regulation To Aid The Vagrants And Beggars In Urban Areas was enacted to fill the gaps. However, the transition from the deportation system to relief management does not mean the solution of problems, also the end of institutional change.This is not a comprehensive study of the Internment and Repatriation System, though, we involved the process, motivation and results of the system's generation, evolution and abolishment from the view of institutional change. This is too huge a system that comprehensive and systematic research is not realistic. From the view of political science, this paper provides some logical analysis on the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System, taking government preference as the core. We are trying to analyse the position of government preference which is a very important variable among all related variables influencing the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System. In order to answer this question, we should make clear the appearance, the contents and the function of government preference in every stage of the institutional change:from the system's generation to variation, strengthening, and eventually to abolishment. Further more, associated with those questions, we should analyze how can the government preference be shaped to be favorable for the government to play a more active and more reasonable role in the process of institutional change.This research can enrich the content of the institutional change in China. At the same time, we can reveal the specific role of the state and government in the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System. The main clue of this paper is "origin-institutionalized-variation-abolished". This is a logic-oriented analysis, not simply following the thread of time to indicate the evolution of the Internment and Repatriation System. Based on the logical analysis, this paper proposes a core viewpoint, namely:government preference is a key factor to understand the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System. Of course, government preference is not a constant factor, which is being shaped and changed constantly. A particular institutional arrangement could be an independent variable or a dependent variable for government preference, and vice versa. In order to have a better understanding of the meaning of government preference for the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System, we analyse the preference from four aspects:state-centered, preference camouflage, decentralization and path dependence. The final conclusion is the generation, implementation and abolishment of the internment and repatriation largely depends on government preference and its changes. Whether the Internment and Repatriation System changes depends on the perspectives and expectations of government preference to institutional change in different periods.The main part of this paper is composed of four chapters(except Chapterâ… Introduction and Chapter VI:Conclusion).Chapterâ…¡is literature review. Through systematic reviewing of relative literatures in different disciplines at home and abroad on institutional change and government preference, we present the theoretical basis of this paper. Chapterâ…¢consists of what is government preference, influencing factors of this preference, the role of government preference in the process of institutional change, and then put forward four perspectives to understand the institutional change of the Internment and Repatriation System:state-centered, preference camouflage, decentralization and path dependence. All of these provide a theoretical framework for the next two chapters to analyze institutional change. Chapterâ…£introduces the development of the Internment and Repatriation System, including the institutional origin of the system's generation from the view of historical narration and the formal generation and the status quo of the institutional structure from the view of standardization. Chapter V explains why a system which involved relief initially, eventually mutated into a regulation system without any relief. we focus on not only the process of variation, but also the government preference in the process of variation, which is a key factor closely related to the fate of a system.